


praise the mutilated world

by Vivian



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Sexual Tension, shameless references to own other fanfic (In cinders we bathe)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 00:02:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5805484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivian/pseuds/Vivian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Celebrimbor dreams.</i><br/><br/>They come to him in the murk of night. Fever-clad—swirling twists of sweven.<br/>Some augury of moonlit vapours.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	praise the mutilated world

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go as always to [my bae angelas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelas), who looked over this and who inspired me to pay attention more consciously to rhythm <3

They come to him in the murk of night. Fever-clad—swirling twists of sweven.

Some augury of moonlit vapours; before him plains shrouded in mist. An ancient world, when the void between the stars was farther and more perilous. And vanquished at his feet: armies of soldiers maimed—and torn. Broken spear and broken blade. Armour obtunded, and underneath, the paleness of bloodless flesh.

Demimonde. He wanders hither and yon, he has no care for straying. And he sees many things. His father’s silhouette. The great hound of his uncle. The tapestries once hung in the halls of Nargothrond. All false and yet. Memories wrought and made anew. Here, where no prying eye may glance upon him, he feels the shiver of Annatar’s voice in the air.

Annatar speaks to him with a tongue of silver. Malleable and sumptuous. But his _hands_ are of iron. And with them—he _makes_. The clangour of his hammer striking the anvil. Such things he crafts. Such knowledge he holds, and shares. He who from the blessed lands did come, he with fire dancing in his eyes and nightfall in his stride.

‘I will show you all that I know,’ Annatar spoke when first they met. A falseness coiled in the curve of his lips. Putrid and adust. Enough to blind all else, yarn woven into a tale of generosity and nobleness. Pellucid only to him, and intended thus. Adroitly crafted.

Now Celebrimbor walks in the shadows of slumber. And he knows not if these be machinations brought into effect by his own mind, or that of Annatar. Or if indeed they are an amalgam of both.

Whilst he wanders he hears Annatar’s voice.

‘There is a thing inside you. A hungry, screaming thing it is. And it demands everything.’

The words are knit into the mist, breathy and charred.

‘You are neither humble nor do you wish to serve… it is creation divine that drives you.’

Celebrimbor comes ever closer to the whispers. A path through the vapours.

‘You are a maker. You create with your hands. I understand that. The hunger. The beast. The _joy_.’

His own heartbeat is an echo of a world unmade, barren and bereft and free. A world with cries in the winds, as any one thing cries that is born.

‘It is in your blood, Celebrimbor. It is who you _are_.’ A sudden fury thieves his breath at this, an ancient wrath that is blustering inside him. It drives him amain, and onward.

Until at last Celebrimbor beholds him.

‘Do not look at me so,’ Annatar speaks. His fey voice seeps into Celebrimbor’s skin. He stills and he stares. Annatar stands midst wisps of smoke, of ash and soot and _tar_. And he. He is a phantom. Night-clad and luminous. So fair. And pale, as perhaps the first morning of this world.  

‘It is your own doing. Always.’ And there in the threads of his gossamer-gaze Celebrimbor twists. Shame like the dried spill of blood lies curdled on the flat of his tongue. He thinks of his father then, and of _the one_ before him.

‘Yes,’ Annatar says, ‘you burn, too.’

Celebrimbor breathes in and says, ‘Yes.’

Annatar is close now, and his scent is as oil smeared into dusk. Annatar smiles slowly, baring his teeth. Flames writhe in the gold of his eyes. But something else, too, a hidden thing, some riven secret. It is this that Celebrimbor reaches for. Annatar’s harsh breath underneath him; perfidious. How they sink into the smoke, the grey wafts of it. Neath the stretch of his fingers Annatar is but an atrophy of marble. Deathless. _Sneering_.

‘You have never known him,’ Annatar says, ‘the fire-spirit. Yet you are so alike. I have seen him, when he dwelt in Tirion, between mountain and the sea.’

 

The shores of the blessed land rake from the ocean. Jagged rocks obsidian-black. The winds of Manwë howl and whip the waves with sharp lashes. The screech of seagulls.

As smoke they tread here. Annatar leads elusive as moonlight. Along the shore, along the beaches of Alqualondë adorned with the glimmer of pearl. North-west they veer. The light is waning, waxing, never quelled. The Trees. Celebrimbor cannot breathe for the high tide in his heart. They leave the Pelóri mountains to their right, and as a cloud impend upon Tirion.

‘See,’ Annatar speaks. Streets of marble, white towers, gilded fountains and trees heavy with fruit— A hall. Twilight. There: his father’s step. His face pale and stern— Before him _he_. Taller still, and terrible. But a _glint_ of his profile— _he_ turns towards them—

Annatar’s breath at his ear. And his hands smooth against the slant of his chest.

‘Oh but you do not want to know,’ Annatar hisses, and then more softly, ‘it were only aliment for your nightmares.’

‘Show me,’ Celebrimbor commands tonelessly.

‘No.’

He stares at his father then, and in his father’s eyes beholds the reflection of Fëanor. Blazing like a beacon. And Celebrimbor knows him as a wild creature, burning, devouring, a force of nature set into his chest, coiling, uncoiling, _breathing_ , and there is ash and flame on his tongue, or is it Annatar’s kiss ancient and bitter as cinders, some wailing thing, and there are tears and they are not his own. The Lord of Gifts is unadorned but for the tresses of silver hair, long and smooth.

He stands as a siren, and his song is of the void.

Celebrimbor harkens. Sinks into the strange susurrus, valetudinary and sharp as knives. And if it cuts him, he knows not, but he knows this: Annatar’s fingers are pale as the dust of stars he has crushed between them. Annatar tastes of cold iron. Annatar bears a secret and an altar in his chest, and the name of an old god on his tongue. Annatar is venefic. Wroth as shadow and trothed to ruin.

Corrupted. And Celebrimbor wants all of it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a prompt by canterville (abrassaxe) on tumblr. It sort of got out of hand. Thank you for that Percy. <3  
> I've been meaning to write about Celebrimbor and Annatar forever. So here is a first glance on how I imagine them. There is more to come.  
> Please let me know what you think about this!  
>   
> & if perchance you wanna say 'Hi' or have a prompt, talk to me on tumblr: lieutenant-mairon


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